March 9, 2019. 6:11 am. Holding our breath at the top of the world.

I didn’t want to add ‘endanger the local wildlife’ to my list of things I did today. I really didn’t. In fact, this is something I absolutely refuse to let stand.

Even as Rufka is pulling me into a side hug, I start pushing away. There must be something we can do. The first thing I do is spin up fresh air next to them. It seems to help, but they’re still wheezing.

Asking Rose to maintain the effect, I fly directly to the console, opening up the menu. I push through the options but I’m unable to find anything. Several minutes later, I feel Rufka’s hand on my shoulder. When I look over, I see Rufka and Roberts behind me. Above, Trellani sits at the edge of the pit, looking in the direction of the Elswyrms.

“Maybe you should let someone else have a look? Or at least explain what you’re doing,” Roberts suggests, pulling me away from the console. As I sit, I realize I’m still creating a sphere of air to maintain the comfortable atmosphere despite the lower pressure. I didn’t even have to think to set it on autopilot, using my Channelling ability on reflex.

Taking his advice, I tell the others what I’ve done so far. But I can tell none of them understand. Rufka is an amazing rune-crafter, but the design of the System built city-ships are so divergent, it’s like… the difference between properly removing blood from a carpet without ruining it and cleaning your chin with a paper napkin. They're both technically cleaning, but they're not remotely similar.

Still, I do show them what I’ve figured out.

"So, why don't you bleed the excess mana to another System?" Rufka asks, "Then maybe these engines'll stop spitting us into the air so hard."

Face-palming, I turn back to the console, opening the thrusters back up. But when I try to adjust their power levels, the same warning message pops up. Looks like the whole console is locked.

“No good,” I respond, shaking my head.

“It was worth the attempt,” Roberts notes while pacing back and forth.

“Yeah. I guess we’re going to have to try something else.” I squint upward, staring at the empty sky. It’s weird being so high up that there are no clouds.

“Well, if we’re done down here, what say we bring this discussion to somewhere more interesting,” Rufka suggests, tugging me with her.

I give her a half-smile, as she pulls me toward the edge of the city. She stops a few metres from where the edge disappears.

There are several Elswyrms below us, following at a much lower altitude. I can see their sparks, but we’re far enough away that I can’t hear them. We spend a minute peering over the edge as I try to discern if there’s a way we can use the Elswyrm’s to fix this. A scuffing sound behind me, causes me to turn.

Everyone’s followed us, except Trellani. Roberts is pacing back and forth, his fingers steepled as he frowns at the ground. “I don’t understand how the engines work, but couldn’t you access them directly instead of using the console?”

I’m about to object, but… maybe he’s right. I mean, they didn’t have a proper readout before, but now that the city is flying, maybe things will be different. Nodding in his direction, I start flying toward the nearest engine. Approaching the engine, I set down on a thin layer of frost which melts in a large radius the second I land. It’s a clear visualization of how large an area my aura is passively affecting at this point. Definitely recording the details once we’ve staved off the disaster I accidentally inflicted on the Elswyrm family.

We make our way inside, working our way down to the engine room. Even after the initial work the others put in to get this city properly repaired and operational, the corridors are still choked with debris. With the limits on our magic when we’re inside, we’d have to cart everything out by hand. Or take long breaks for our mana to regenerate after using it inside. It’s simpler to leave everything where it is. Well, most of it.

I pocket a reflective shard that's broken off the inside of the tower, to play with later. Maybe I’ll use it in Smoulder’s next training course. Once I figure out how to get her back.

Crackling energy greets us when we get to the door to the Ripple drive. The door itself is jammed half-closed, forcing us to squeeze through sideways. I find myself watching Rufka pull herself through before turning back to consider the Drive itself. I realize there must still be some form of shielding in place, because inside the room is louder than outside. And there’s more than enough air to breathe easily.

The core of the drive remains dormant, but there are housings along the outer edges that thrum with power. Housings I’ve barely paid attention to before. They’d seemed like part of the support structure. “Huh, I didn’t know these did anything.”

“It’d explain why mum couldn’t figure anything out.” Rufka holds her hand near it, sending my heart to my throat as the thought of her being zapped fills my mind. But before I can pull her away, she stops. “The mana feels off. Empty almost.”

Standing beside her, I extend my own mana senses, though I don’t bring my hand any closer to the housing. She’s right. The mana feels as though it’s been stripped of any elemental properties. It’s the opposite of an essence shard. Almost… more like mana-dust?

Still, I’m not sure if we can use this. So I move toward the console where Roberts and Rose are already tapping away. “Anything?”

Roberts shakes his head, “There’s a new message, but it’s not responding to our input.”

“Not that being ignored is new to me,” Rose mumbles under his breath. I almost question him about it, but now’s not the time.

Reading over Rose’s shoulder, the message says, “Ripple drive - Levitation Engines engaged. Corrupted mana detected. Purging mana storage. 4:12.”

Well, at least there’s a timer.

We spend another few minutes taking turns at the console, but we’re still unable to make any progress. I’m sitting on the catwalk, kicking my feet while staring down at the inactive Ripple Drive when Rufka sits beside me. I’ve spent almost a half an hour of real time, thinking in Pause, but I haven’t come up with anything.

“Given up?”

“No!” I deny, “But… I can’t think of anything we can do. I mean, I could try to pull the entire island down, but I don’t think I’ve got that much power. Or we could move them manually, but I know how dangerous that can be.”

“Well, I was thinking. I might be able to create runescript that would bleed power. But I’ll need your help.”

I jump to my feet, nearly banging my knees as I clamber up. I know that would’ve been a solid thwack before I raised my Agility. Luckily, instead of losing health, I turn it into slight bow. Rufka doesn’t even chuckle, instead leading me outside where we start gathering materials. She has me focus on retrieving several metre long sections from the collapsed spire. We also get Rose to send Trellani to help. He grumbles but agrees, taking over keep the Elswyrms breathing duty.

Once we have the sections of the spire laid out, Rufka begins inscribing runework that’s so crude I could probably have done it myself. Once she’s finished inscribing basic power channels, she adds several offshoots that don’t have any obvious effect. She gets me and Trellani to copy her pattern, inlaying hundreds of pieces all with the same effect.

It takes us nearly half an hour to finish getting the plates in place. Each one is leaned against the thrumming housings. No housing has less than ten of these crude fins secured to them. With the fins in place, Rufka places a small black block at their base then directs us to the surface with a giant grin on her face.

“Come on, faster,” She urges while pushing me from behind as we leave.

“Uh... Rufka? What’d you do?” I ask, glancing in the direction of the… magicky thingie she’s created where I can hear it buzzing.

“Something fun!” Trellani declares, grinning madly as she races toward the nearest engine’s door.

“Well, you know how essence stones can be formed from raw mana?” As I nod, Rufka continues pulling me to the same engine. “I figured we could try to create some from all the extra mana that’s going to-” She doesn’t have time to finish, as the city shifts beneath our feet. It stops a second later, with the street now leaning at a slight angle. I look to the North, past the edge of the city. I can see the mountains now. It’s hard to tell from our elevation, but I think we’re moving toward them.

Even as I’m considering how this might be exactly what we need for steering, we make it to the entrance. Rufka pauses, scratching at her chin. “Uh, Lexi. I might’ve messed up.”

“What do you… Oh,” When I poke my head past her, I note the chaotic mess of twisted metal inside. None of the catwalks or access ladders appear to be intact. Instead, they’ve been sucked against the walls. In fact, they match up with each spot she placed one of her black bricks.

It’s funny. If she’d done this outside of the engines, I’d be able to just twist the metal back into shape in a minute.

“We’re descending,” Roberts informs us through the open door while I’m staring at the twisted metal. I can still hear the thrumming from the engines, but part of me can’t help but worry. What if we don’t stop? What if we keep descending, crashing the city and ruining it? Before I’m able to go too far, Roberts adds, “I think we’ve stabilized.”

When I hear that, I plop down on the spot, rubbing my forehead. Well, at least that’s kind of solved. Now we just need to aim ourselves toward the others. After carefully divesting ourselves of the Elswyrms.

Rufka lets me sit for a couple minutes; time I wisely invest in staring at the mess. Then she grabs my arm and leads me outside, at which point we go check on the nest of Elswyrms. The majestic creature’s scales almost keep me from entering the building, having shifted to block most of the entrance. But they’ve grown quiet. I’m worried for a minute, but I’m able to confirm they’re breathing. Besides, if they’d been dead, they would’ve just blown away in the wind.

Even as I’m trying to spy on the eggs, the Elswyrm shifts again, slithering until one of its eyes is staring directly at me. It sits there, inspecting me, the lid blinking slowly. I step away from it, the eye dilating as it tracks me. Then with a sigh, it closes the eye, settling in place.

Swallowing, I float away from the stone building they’re using as a nest. I keep floating until I’m sure I won’t disturb them again. Turning to Rufka, I ask “Think we can do that again? But with less explosions?”

“Sure. We can do less explosions,” Rufka elbows me, pulling me toward another engine where the others are waiting. Just outside is a building that’s in considerably better shape than most of the city. It’s easy to recognize my own work, the pair of Smoulder statues flanking the entrance are only the most obvious clue. Inside what I had intended to serve as an entrance hall are stacks of silver scrap.

“Why is all this scrap here? I made storage rooms!” I cry, focusing on Roberts, definitely not overreacting at seeing a reminder of Smoulder out front.

He smiles, with a shrug. “I don’t have very good metal manipulation. Moving all this to your storage rooms would’ve taken me another day or two. You didn’t exactly make them easy to get to.”

I raise a finger, but then reflect on my design. He’s right. I didn’t think they were important because personal inventory. And everything else. Honestly, I hadn’t really planned on using them, but the design didn’t feel complete without them. Which is why they were below the basement. A basement with a swimming pool that had probably spilled over its edges, possibly filling those very storage rooms. “Uh. Right,” I half-cough, “Anyway, Rufka had an idea.”

Rufka nods taking over as she explains the details of how to create the panels to steer. We’ve only started on the first set of panels when Rufka asks, “Why don’t we make it interesting?”

“What did you have in mind?” Roberts asks, inspecting the first panel that Rufka created, running his fingers over it.

“A race. See who can inscribe the most panels in the next thirty minutes.”

“Nope,” I interject, with similar replies from the others. “You and Trellani would probably each finish more by yourselves than the rest of us combined.”

“You know,” Roberts says, setting a panel he’s just finished next to him. His first panel where Rufka’s already finished four. “That might be a fair race.”

“What all three of us against Rufka and Trellani? Sounds like fun,” Rose agrees.

Rufka looks around at us, her eyes squinting, “Wait, how… you know what, fine. It’s on.”

“Totally,” Trellani agrees, pumping two fists in the air even as she spins her own scrivener.

We don’t wait for a starting signal. Everyone focuses on their task. After five minutes, I realize we might have a chance. Not a good chance, cause it’s taking me far too long to inscribe properly. Meanwhile, Trellani is a freaking inscription wizard. By herself, she’s doing nearly as many as Rufka.

Which I guess makes Rufka the inscription Arch-wizard? Even as I’m chuckling to myself, I mess up the inscription I’m working on. I really should be better at inscription, but for some reason, I still haven’t unlocked the skill. Everyone else has it, but even with Rufka’s guidance and my Voidcraft Engineer subclass, mine remains locked. Which means little gaps in concentration ruin my attempts. Like the slab of silver scrap that I’m currently reshaping so I can start over.

Even as I’m finishing my first piece, Roberts lays down his fourth. And while I improve slightly, even between the three of us, I don’t think we’re as fast as Rufka or Trellani. But still, the plates are piling up faster and faster.

Eventually, the half-hour passes, and we gather the plates together, counting them out.

“Okay, it looks like Rufka managed to inscribe… 33. Trellani has… 32,” Roberts says, carefully setting theirs on either side of the door outside. “And we managed…” he stops as he double checks his count again, walking his fingers up the stacks. “34.”

We start hi-fiving each other, and I'm giving Roberts a fist bump when Rufka speaks up. "Ahem."

Turning we all look at where Rufka is pointing towards my pile of inscribed fins. She holds one up, channelling mana through it only for it to spark and warp. I feel a growing sense of dread growing in my belly when she takes the next fin out of my pile with the same result. She then demonstrates that neither her fins, nor any of the ones worked by the others have the same flaw.

"Well. It looks like Rufka wins with 33 to Trellani’s 32 and our 30," Roberts accedes with a polite bow.

The moment the words are out of his mouth, Rufka plucks two of her fins off a pile then starts strutting back and forth as she yells out, “I am the champ-lion! I am the champ-lion!” Rose tries to correct her, but Rufka just doubles down. “No time for losers! I am the champ-lion!”

Even as Rufka continues her victory dance, we return to work. We’re going to need a lot more plates to properly rig the engine in place.

Hours later, we’re ready to install the fins in a second engine. With fins of better quality, the reaction is much smoother, though it’s still weird to have an entire city dozens of kilometres across shift under your feet.

An awesome weird that makes me glad I wasn’t flying under my own power when it happened.

And after all the work we’ve put in, we’ll be able to replicate this whenever we want.

Despite only being partially responsible, it still feels like a win.

I’ll take it.